


to rebuild a bridge

by akc



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Frottage, Hair-pulling, M/M, Post-War, Sexual Content, this is immensely sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-18 05:09:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21822232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akc/pseuds/akc
Summary: Dimitri has come to learn, tentatively, that death is not the only thing that provides a warm embrace.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 6
Kudos: 128





	to rebuild a bridge

**Author's Note:**

> this started off as an entirely different premise and then I began to feel "emotional" and now it's This.

Death is a warm embrace, as Dimitri has come to unfortunately find out.

The fact that it is warm is the unfortunate part. It is so inviting, so calm and gentle, like a mother’s embrace—and Dimitri has not felt a warm embrace in ages. Many months ago, while he was lying in a field in the rain over a blanket of his own blood, Dimitri thought about this. He could not remember the last time he was hugged. He could not remember the last time someone touched him with kindness. 

But death—it felt so kind. It felt so merciful. His body was floating. An indescribably beautiful streak of yellow light was bursting underneath his eyelids, completely overpowering the sensation of the otherwise freezing rain all around him.

It lasted until he felt someone pick him up. It lasted until that same someone put him in a pile of hay in a little farm shed. Then his body went back to being cold; it went back to being empty and in pain. Death was a warm embrace, and even that was taken away from him.

He had nothing.

He had nothing save for whomever this person was. They wore a mask and they nursed him back to health. They kept a little lantern by him in the farm shed and it was the only source of warmth Dimitri had. It was too difficult to get up and move, so he couldn’t even escape. He could not escape from the warmth. 

Everything was all fucked up.

The mystery person never revealed who they were. They never spoke to him, either; not even a single word. Every morning they would come into the shed and give Dimitri food, until one morning they were not there. They fled, Dimitri assumed. He’s heard word of people like this—those who help anybody injured as a result of the war, no matter who they are. People who want peace.

Nothing more than another warmth that Dimitri had lost. 

He took the lantern along with him, though, just for good measure. And as he continued to travel, searching for nothing in particular, killing for reasons he couldn’t remember, all Dimitri could think about was that warmth. That warmth that he might not ever feel again. It was endlessly taunting him. Whispers in his ears would tell him to search for it again.  _ Search for death,  _ they would say. 

Dimitri tried stuffing mud in his ears to make it stop but all he got was an ear infection. Stupid, stupid, stupid fucking stupid fucking useless brain. There might as well be a hole in his frontal lobe.

That felt like ages ago.

Dimitri has come to learn, tentatively, that death is not the only thing that provides a warm embrace. There is a warm embrace in sitting on the carpet by a fireplace, comforter around his shoulders, given to him by Ingrid. There is a warm embrace in talking to Annette about what she’s read lately; the way her eyes light up when she speaks is enough to make Dimitri feel like he, too, may still have some light left inside of him. There is a warm embrace in Sylvain taking his hand and holding it steady during moments where his brain is too foggy and inverted to think correctly.

And there is a warm embrace in Felix, too, as oxymoronic as it sounds. If anything, there is the warmest, chilliest embrace in Felix than in anything else. Dimitri can feel it when they play-argue. He can feel it when Felix apologizes for things that he wouldn’t usually apologize for. He can feel it.

It feels like sunlight.

Dimitri’s mind and senses have been considerably dulled due to years of physical and mental battering, but he knows for a fact that for as cold as Felix is, he is still infinitely bright. Felix is—absolutely gorgeous would be an understatement, especially in comparison to Dimitri. Dimitri knows how ugly he has become; he sees it all over his face whenever he looks at himself in a mirror. Despite his ugliness, though, Felix still insists that he is beautiful. It’s sort of funny hearing him say it, always so awkward and mumbly and frustrated.

Death was a warm embrace, but Felix is a warm embrace, and he is the opposite of death. There is more to being alive than praying for death, Dimitri has discovered. There is always more to being alive, even when it feels like there isn’t.

It’s the little things that mean the most. It’s the sun crawling out from underneath the horizon. It’s the fact that birds still sing in the trees even when Dimitri cannot think coherently. It is hearing people laugh. It is when Felix removes Dimitri’s eyepatch and tosses it to the floor when they go to bed. It is Felix’s long hair splayed out on the pillow beneath him when Dimitri fucks him. It is the morning. The evening. The night. 

Dimitri no longer has nothing. He tries to remember that. He has a lot of missing memories, but this is one thing that he refuses to ever forget. 

He will not forget.

* * *

In an effort to not forget, Dimitri kept that dumb old lantern with him, even after he had made his way back to Fhirdiad. It sits on top of a bookshelf in his room, unused for many many months. He probably won’t ever use it again, and that’s just fine. There is a bigger, warmer fireplace in his room, and using that lantern almost feels disrespectful anyway. He had to put it behind a few other books after a while, though. Although it’s irrational, sometimes Dimitri feels like the lantern watches him when— 

“Are you listening to me?” Felix asks, voice impossibly close to Dimitri’s ear. “You’ve been acting like a boulder today.”

“A boulder,” Dimitri echoes. He’s about to say something else about that but then doesn’t, because Felix’s hand is around his dick, stroking just too slowly. Ah, right. This is why he started thinking about the lantern.

“Mhm. A boulder,” Felix mumbles, pressing his lips to the spot underneath Dimitri’s ear and sucking. He’s lying parallel to Dimitri, on his side, holding himself up with an elbow. His body is radiating warmth. It’s very nice. 

“I’m—not a b-boulder,” he manages. 

“I know.” Felix shifts more of his weight to his knees, steadying himself by wrapping a leg around Dimitri’s thighs. He uses his other now-free hand to tug at Dimitri’s hair, exposing his neck more. 

“Then what makes you say th—“

“Shhh,” he says, voice just a whisper against Dimitri’s neck. He nips at the flesh there and soothes it over with his tongue. “You talk so damn much. Shut up for a few minutes.”

This is the point where Dimitri would have said  _ okay,  _ but he doesn’t because Felix rubs a thumb over his slit and instead a whine comes out of his mouth. 

He wonders what Felix’s face looks like right now. 

“Felix, what about you—“

“I said shush,” Felix says immediately, interrupting him for the second time in a row. He yanks at Dimitri’s hair, probably to punctuate his point, and the hand around his cock pumps faster. “For a king, you’re not a very good listener. I’m fine.”

And he probably is fine, Dimitri knows this. He’s just having a hard time lying next to Felix and not touching him, not hearing him all breathy, not looking at his beautiful, beautiful face. 

But he can behave. He will behave. 

“If you’re good,” Felix says, “I’ll let you jerk me off. That’s what you want, right?”

“Well, not precisely—“

“That’s what you want,  _ right _ ?” Felix repeats, moving his mouth away from Dimitri’s neck and down to his chest. He takes a nipple in between his teeth, rolling his tongue around the nub. Dimitri arches his back, moving his hand around wildly until it finds Felix’s hair. 

“Please,” Dimitri exhales, not completely sure what he’s saying it for, “Please, Felix.”

Felix hums, still mouthing Dimitri’s chest. “Please what?”

“Let me—just let me—“

“Ah, fine.” Felix stops what he’s doing and sits up; Dimitri whines pathetically. “I’m only doing this because I feel sorry for you.”

Dimitri watches as Felix removes his briefs and tosses them off the side of the bed. He notices, quite pleased, that he’s already half hard. His impatience seems to have gotten the better of him.

“Sit up,” Felix instructs, waiting on his knees. Dimitri does as he is told, shoving the blanket he was under to the side to make more room. Felix situates himself on Dimitri’s lap without any more fuss and presses a very sweet kiss against his cheek. 

Dimitri feels spoiled. It’s always the little things. 

There’s no more time to dwell on that thought, though, because Felix is taking them both into his hand without even the slightest of warnings. Dimitri’s hips jump when Felix squeezes their cocks together and he moans at the friction, surprising himself. 

He wraps his own hand around Felix’s and the two of them start moving. It’s slow at first, because Felix always likes to do this—likes to make Dimitri all frustrated—but it never lasts very long this way. 

Dimitri finds Felix’s hair with his other hand and pulls him forward into a searing kiss, something that makes all of Dimitri’s ribcage warm up. They fuck into Felix’s hand earnestly, erratically, like the world might be ending. Dimitri loves when they do it like this, loves the way it makes him feel alive, as uncoordinated and almost brutish as it is. 

Their kiss has gotten more and more clumsy, to the point where Felix isn’t moving his mouth much anymore. Dimitri doesn’t mind; he likes when Felix gets like this. His stoney outer shell fades away so quickly. It’s very endearing. 

Dimitri snaps his hips up and Felix moans nearly brokenly. There’s a little line of drool rolling down his chin, Dimitri notices. He licks it away, tongue swiping over Felix’s lower lip when he pulls back.

Felix’s head falls forward and thunks softly against Dimitri’s shoulder, tucked right next to his neck. He’s making those soft, breathless sounds that he always makes when he’s close, and Dimitri takes this as a sign to jerk them faster. Their cocks rub together, slick with precome, and Dimitri tightens his grip where his hand is fisted in Felix’s hair.

“Oh, fuck,” Felix whispers, and then he twitches and comes into his hand, pressing his forehead harder into Dimitri’s chest. It doesn’t take much longer for Dimitri to follow; he tips his head back and says something akin to  _ ah, felix, felix,  _ and then he comes too, riding out the last of it with some heavy sighing before he flops backwards, taking Felix along with him.

They lie in silence for a moment.

“What happened towards the end there? Your bravado wore off very quickly,” Dimitri says once he’s caught his breath.

Felix gently knocks him on the arm with his fist. “Shut up.”

“Oh, I’m only joking.” Dimitri gives him a catlike pet on the head. “I thought that you looked good either way.”

“Shut up!” Felix says again, louder this time. His face is a cute peach color and there’s sweat gathered at his scalp; Dimitri doesn’t know what to do with himself. He smiles, feeling like a gigantic fool.

He sighs. He should clean up, probably. That sounds like a good idea. “All right, all right. Let me get up, please.”

“Wait.” Felix shakes his head to get some hair out of the way and looks Dimitri right in the eye. The seriousness takes him aback. “Just stop and lay with me for a minute.”

Dimitri smiles, and again and again and again. “Okay,” he says.

* * *

Morning comes. Morning always comes, even when it feels like it shouldn’t.

Sunlight stretches across the carpet and onto the bed he and Felix are nestled together on. They’ve yanked the blankets all the way up to their chins because the temperature dropped significantly halfway through the night (or so it seemed) and the fireplace had already gone out. Felix mumbled and complained about Dimitri having  _ horrifyingly cold feet  _ until he fell asleep.

Dimitri wakes up first, because he always wakes up first. It’s gotten very hard to sleep soundly, because his mind is always on defense mode, constantly preparing and repreparing itself for danger, but it’s better than it was before, at least. He sits up and rubs his face before looking down at Felix, who may or may not still be asleep. Sometimes he likes to pretend to sleep when really he’s trying to make sure Dimitri’s all right.

It’s very kind of him.

He seems to be asleep for real, so after he stares for a short moment, Dimitri curls himself back up into the blankets in a hopeful attempt to sleep just a little bit more. He pushes some hair that has fallen in front of Felix’s eyes out of his face and hums.

“Hm,” he says, and then, “ah,” and then “hmm” again. Dimitri doesn’t know how to make words work, but he sure would like to try. “I love you,” he whispers, kissing Felix’s temple, feeling very silly, before closing his own eyes and swimming back into the peaceful silence.

There’s a cough, though, and then Felix’s arm is around Dimitri. “Yeah,” he says, voice almost nothing at all. “I… uh, you too. Me too.” He coughs some more. “I love you too.”

And then he is quiet. 

Death is a warm embrace, Dimitri knows, but so is life.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading as always!
> 
> you can find me on twitter [right here!](https://twitter.com/bloomedvillain)


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